US Rescinds Plan To Dismantle Ocean Observatories Initiative

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The signs that the clown show known as Trump II is rapidly coming apart at the seams are everywhere. Last month, the US government announced it was ending the Ocean Observatories Initiative and removing the hundreds of sensors in the ocean that provide crucial data about the world’s oceans — especially the Atlantic Overturning Meridional Current, which strongly influences the climate in Iceland, Scandinavia, and Western Europe.

Just days ago, the putative president signed a humiliating memorandum of understanding at Versailles in which the United States agreed to effectively pay Iran $300 billion in reparations. It was supposed to signal the start of a 60 day period during which the parties would negotiate a final treaty, but the deal may not last 60 hours, as this morning Israel is continuing military operations in Lebanon, in violation of the agreement.

Last night, Jimmy Kimmel called that agreement the “Retreaty of Versailles” — a reference to the fact that the treaty ending World War One was also signed at that location. It was that treaty, which imposed harsh penalties on Germany, that led directly to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the start of World War Two.

Reversing Course

On June 18, 2026, the National Science Foundation, which is under the control of confirmed MAGA Maniacs, issued a statement that said, “The U.S. National Science Foundation appreciates the concerns raised by the range of stakeholders that have informed us they rely on data from the Ocean Observatories Initiative. Effective immediately, NSF will not proceed with further removal or descoping of equipment from the remaining arrays and will continue operations including planned maintenance. While the Endurance Array has been removed from the water, we are developing plans to redeploy the equipment after servicing.

“Moving forward, NSF will issue a Dear Colleague Letter to collect input from stakeholders and convene an expert panel to assess observational needs, evaluate available data sources, consider responses to the Dear Colleague Letter and help the agency identify a sustainable path for NSF’s ocean observing systems. NSF remains committed to ocean sciences, to responsible stewardship of its research infrastructure and to supporting the stakeholders that depend on it.”

Lies & Damned Lies

What a bunch of weasel worded Grade A horse puckey! The NSF didn’t know that people relied on the data from the OOI? Anyone with the cognitive ability of broccoli knows that. But the original plan to dismantle OOI was just one part of this administration’s full frontal assault on science. Keeping people ignorant by severely limiting the flow of information to the citizenry is a critical part of Project 2025, the fascist handbook assembled by the Heritage Foundation.

While the puerile potentate in the Offal Office twists and turns and rages constantly on social media, Russell Vought is quietly implementing Project 2025 using his position as head of the Office of Management and Budget. He actually has a clearer idea about what is happening in the US today than the so-called president.

The Senate Steps Up

What Vought did not count on was Republicans in Congress removing their testicles from cold storage to pass a bill opposing the dismantling of OOI. According to the New York Times, this week “the Senate passed a measure that would block the government from dismantling the system, with lawmakers in both parties warning that the action would be illegal and would threaten the safety of coastal communities. The Trump administration had also tried to cut the program’s funds the last two years, but Congress restored the money both times.”

The measure was sponsored by Senators Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, and Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. Murkowski criticized the Trump administration for failing to consult Congress before beginning to remove some monitoring equipment. “N.S.F. moved forward on their own, not only unilaterally, but really with no warning, no heads up,” she said. “They didn’t even bother to check in, and that’s where the real foul was.”

Murkowski said fisheries in Alaska relied on the ocean data to determine how increasing temperatures were threatening certain species. She said other data was crucial to understanding El Niño, the powerful weather pattern that formed this month in the tropical Pacific and could supercharge extreme weather events around the globe.

False Economy & Stupidity

When it first made the announcement about dismantling the system in May, the National Science Foundation said it would save $48 million a year in operating costs. But lawmakers said doing so would waste the $368 million in taxpayer dollars that funded the installation of the instruments in 2016. The operating expenses are a tiny fraction of overall government spending. The New York Times is reporting today that the administration recently spent $700 million to acquire 7 empty warehouses to house people detained by ICE. Now it wants to dump them and may actually wind up giving some of them away. This administration truly is the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

“Dismantling the O.O.I. was supreme stupidity,” Mr. Merkley said in a statement on Thursday. Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, welcomed the reversal but said she would continue fighting to save the system. “This pathetic scheme was illegal,” she said. “My oversight team and I will be following closely what NSF does next. [Its] next steps must be nothing short of replacing any of the instruments that have already been removed and ceasing all activities to de-scale until legitimate expert advice has been sought.”

What is important to understand here is that the Senate passed the measure to preserve the system by unanimous consent, essentially an agreement by all senators to bypass debate. That is a severe smackdown of the president, who has ruffled a lot of feathers among Republican Senators by backing opponents to two long serving members of the Senate in primaries this year. What goes around comes around, Donnie, and there is lots more where that came from.